Totally. In contrast, BYD has been on a tear progressing from the Dynasty series to the Ocean series. If I extrapolate my experience in EMS industry, I think it is the supply chain and the engineering talents inside the US or even Germany that are the primary obstacles, which directly impact on all critical factors of time-to-market, total cost and quality. Tesla has to learn the lesson of Foxconn vis-a-vis Flextronics. Otherwise, it would not be able to build any profitable family cars in the ranks of Camry/Accord and Corolla/Civic. BYD already has full lineup for mass markets.
Tesla is in a bind. It has to compete against BBA and Lexus with its current lineup. It needs a separate brand to compete against Toyota and VW. Model 2 would be in the mass market category. Tesla could accomplish that by producing most of its EV products in China and export to the world markets, but politics won't allow it to happen. With high cost production bases in Fremont, Austin and Berlin, I see Tesla is repeating the mistake that doomed Flextronics. I don't think Tesla can even produce 10 million cars per year without China producing over 75% of them. It might be able to produce near 20 million cars if it moved all-in in China.
